Yesterday I meant to write two things: a nice, positive upbeat piece for the media back home about Connected Voices and the international youth movement, and a kind of wonky blog post about climate finance.

Instead, I shared a few deeply personal thoughts about New Zealand Members of Parliament laughing when another MP quoted Yeb Saño’s emotional opening speech here. I didn’t expect that Yeb would tweet it to Russel Norman (twice!):

— Yeb Saño (@yebsano) November 12, 2013

Philippines’ tracker Carlie Labaria has echoed his comment.

And then this happened.

I really didn’t expect to see Yeb’s tweet on New Zealand news. But that wasn’t my biggest shock here.

Two Ministers denied basic facts of climate change science.

Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said:

Look there’s some impact. [To say] we should uncritically follow the Greens’ extreme views about these things - well many of us don’t.

Minister of Transport Everything Gerry Brownlee said:

Well I think climate change is something that has happened always so to simply come up and say look it’s man made is I think is an interesting prospect.

Then there’s Jami-Lee “No Comment” Ross MP, and potential coalition partner Colin “Not an MP” Craig:

…sunspots, circulation of planets, there’s a wide variety of things it could be…

 

Sunspots guys. Chill out. It’s sunspots.

Fortunately, New Zealanders don’t agree. Another Kiwi here, Natalie Jones, has already questioned what Brownlee’s comments mean for the Christchurch rebuild.

I’m very relieved that Minister for Climate Change Issues Tim Groser gave a logical, accurate answer:

Oh, absolutely. I think the evidence for this is overwhelming. I think you’d have to be denying reality…

I hope to have the chance to ask him about New Zealand’s responses to this overwhelming evidence next week. But I’m also very interested in the dynamics within caucus. These are some extreme differences in the heart of our government. I can’t help but wonder how much those conflicts and contradictions define what we do here at the talks.

 

Sunspot photo credit: NASA/TRACE. (Public domain)

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